A Research On Walsh's Views Of The Problem Of Objectivity In Epistemology Of History

Walsh's essential philosophy view as well as the logical process of western historical philosophy field' research on objectivity is the origin of Walsh's objectivity of history, hi the western historical philosophy field, objectivists take the theory of reflection as the basis of epistemology and hold that there is always historical facts in history which can't be changed by human's subjective desire, thus confirm that the objectivity of history. But relativists take experiencism as the origin of epistemology and hold that there is always subjective factor of historical subjects in epistemology of history, thus deny the objectivity of history. Their only difference is that the former concentrated on the object but the latter pay their attention to the subject. Then- argument is the background of Walsh's thought on the problem of objectivity of history. Walsh's deep research on Kant's philosophy made him be able to analyze the problem of objectivity from constructism. He thought that "historical past" of ontology is historical "thing-in-itself", but "The past of history" of epistemology is historical "phenomenon". This is philosophical basis of Walsh's views on the problem of objectivity.In order to explain the problem better, Walsh expounded his thought in two levels: cognition of facts and cognition of value. As far as the cognition of historical facts is concerned, he refuted objectivism by refuting correspondence theory, then refuted relativism by refuting coherence theory. Therefore, he thought that the truth of the cognition of historical facts lay in a sort of truth of "Colligation". As far as the cognition of historical value is concerned, he expounded emphatically the presupposition of the subject in epistemology of history. Skepticism denied the objectivity, which should be refuted by Walsh. Theory of objective history ideology tried to build up a set of united presupposition to realize the objectivity of history completely. Walsh took an aptitude of "suspension of judgement" to the above view and put forward his perspectivism.Walsh's approach of repositioning objectivity has exerted great influence in the western historical philosophy field. In the later part of the twentieth century, Some historians like Mandlebaum and Turner upheld the objectivity of history. Inspired by this, We try to reconstruct the problem of objectivity of history by a new explaining "objectivity" from two dimensions of "objectivity-in-itself and "objectivity for itself. Before Walsh, "objectivity-in-itself is the crux of the endless debating between objectivism and relativism. Historical materialism is an integrated historical philosophy including perfect historical Ontology, Epistemology and Methodology. Marxist history philosophy's understanding to the problem of "objectivity for itself is the only reasonable approach.